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Re: Fans suggestion thread for future releases

Originally Posted by leonidas302

In the final release will something be done about alot of factions starting with negative income? I understand it for most factions but for a faction like carthage during my playthrough with them majority of the time I was barley able to make money.

Originally Posted by delra

There should be a money script adding a small amount of cash per each garrisoned minor settlement player owns.

I think any scripted assistance for the human player is extremely unlikely. The early game may be difficult, monetarily, but by the mid- to late-game you are swimming in money.

The only way I could see something like that being balanced is if the same script helping you early on, takes money away later.

Re: Fans suggestion thread for future releases

There should be a money script adding a small amount of cash per each garrisoned minor settlement player owns.

This is possible, but very, very CPU intensive. The problems with PSFs in scripting is that they were never meant to be more than, well, permanent forts.

This means that, unlike settlements, there is no way for the script to check which given faction owns a PSF. It is possible to work around this by indicating the exact coordinates the PSF is on, and writing a script to detect if an army belonging to x faction is standing in the spot the PSF is on, which would indicate ownership. However, this requires seperate checks for each PSF, for each faction. So for a single PSF, you get 30 different checks every turn just to see who owns it. With many PSF's, this will result in a lot of checks and a very long script.

Furthermore, the AI is not coded to take advantage of this feature. The AI treats PSF's as regular forts- it pays unoccupied enemy PSF's no attention, since it assumes the PSF would disappear next turn, and does not bother capturing them. The AI will only capture a PSF if there is an enemy unit garrisoned in it.

Dominion of the Sword, a massive medieval era mod for M2TW which was supposed to be the EB of the medieval era (before it was abandoned); came up with a solution to this. They wrote a script that, whenever a faction captured a PSF, would spawn a general of that faction, give it traits to prevent it from moving at all, and console-moved it into the captured PSF. This solved the problem of the AI not being able to deal with PSF's.

The mod had hundreds, if not thousands, of PSF's scattered around Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Each fort had its own script to check who owned it, a script to spawn a general and garrison a PSF when captured, a system of using invisible agents to serve as names for PSF's (long explanation), and a money script attach to each and every PSF. It was a grand undertaking.

Unfortunately, each turn took several minutes to process even on a good computer, and the entire mod was extremely unstable and was near impossible to run for more than a few turns. And the DotS script was very, very well coded and optimised.

Long story short, scripting PSF's to give cash is fraught with many, many problems. Problems that wouldn't be there if there was a simple command to recognise PSF ownership, and an AI that actually recognised PSF's and tried to capture them. But that is beyond the limits of modding. As such, there are no plans to implement such a script, to my knowledge.

Re: Fans suggestion thread for future releases

The AI will only capture a PSF if there is an enemy unit garrisoned in it.

I think there's an exception to this, AI will declare war by recapturing a minor settlement. Saw this a number of times.

swimming in money

Economy needs some serious balancing work. For example, region fertility should be far more ferocious than now, not allowing settlements of low fertility areas to grow to huge cities. At the moment, by turn 300, every city you have is a Carthage in its own right. There's no distinction in size between the metropolis and subject cities of the empire. Everything grows very quickly to the max size

Re: Fans suggestion thread for future releases

I have opened a tread recently regarding economy problems , as I think it is the most serious game play + reality problem in the mod so far. If playing smaller faction, you are in terrible debt even if you conquer 2,3 provinces right away, but as Quintus says, by the mid game you are flowing in the money, and it becomes boringly easy, while in real life, bigger empires went into solvency issues as they expanded (mostly due corruption and inability to properly govern bigger states back than) and in most cases in lead to downfall of all empires...

But, I have not met any serious acceptance about the issue from moders and many funs, too ...

Re: Fans suggestion thread for future releases

Originally Posted by delra

There should be a money script adding a small amount of cash per each garrisoned minor settlement player owns.

I thought the point of the minor settlements was that they give you free money by giving you one free garrisoned unit. While I like the minor settlements, I feel like they may bug out the AI. AI camps in minor settlements instead of their city which allows me to conquer them easily. Also, the AI sometimes sends a stack off from their main fighting force to go attack minor settlements which allows me to destroy their armies piecemeal.

As far as suggestions:
I think ranged damage is way underpowered. Even when units are getting pummeled from behind by javelins and arrows it takes way too long to see any benefit.

Re: Fans suggestion thread for future releases

I find a lot more difficult to get a nice amount of FM

Well. You can always promote another FM by sending a captain to deal with rebels, he wins and you get to adopt... It plays better because family trees are big, messy, from a whole different time period and governance system, and generally flood you with crappy characters who take ages to educate and have a high chance of sucking at that education on top of everything. Kids don't inherit a single thing from their parents, you get a crowd of "usable in 50 turns if ever" DUL characters and are stuck with them as extra (expensive) cavalry.

It really for me plays way better as KH or Pritanoi, with no family tree and direct control over who gets accepted into the family.

Re: Fans suggestion thread for future releases

Originally Posted by delra

Well. You can always promote another FM by sending a captain to deal with rebels, he wins and you get to adopt... It plays better because family trees are big, messy, from a whole different time period and governance system, and generally flood you with crappy characters who take ages to educate and have a high chance of sucking at that education on top of everything. Kids don't inherit a single thing from their parents, you get a crowd of "usable in 50 turns if ever" DUL characters and are stuck with them as extra (expensive) cavalry.

It really for me plays way better as KH or Pritanoi, with no family tree and direct control over who gets accepted into the family.

Family members have very low upkeep, so the last bit shouldn't be a problem.

Re: Fans suggestion thread for future releases

I have some suggestions

1. The Allied governments should have a relationship with the leader instead the state?

I suggest making the Allied government provinces try and revolt when the faction lead dies, including AI. Something like this - If the new faction leader has high Influence then the empire is kept mostly together, but if its an inept Faction leader then the Allied government provinces should try their independence. Or maybe;
A revolt chance based on culture level.
Spawning native rebel armies instead of pure instant revolt.
Based on the Authority level, as the Authority increases the independent faction revolts stabilize.

It would, Make the game feel more intense when a Faction leader dies, rebellions from within and out. The Independent factions feel like they are living factions( Damn the "those people" ! they will not submit). Regress the AI expansion into chunks instead of continuous pressure as they seem to value Allied govs a lot. Make the shadow game more intriguing, assassinating a Faction leader will effect the state instead of maybe or not really.

2. 'Forest Tribal' and 'Tribal State' Factions should be less stable?

For 'Forest Tribal' and 'Tribal State' Factions I believe it should be something similar as above only much more severe. Such as a struggle to just to keep the confederation together, but more united when another faction declares war on them. This would stop Tribal empires from generating very easy. The Pritanoi taking all of Briton, or becoming a Lugian Rikos, should be a huge achievement right? Although it would make a lot of people bored reconquering the same tribes for a long time and feel like the huge half hour battles meant nothing in the end. It would also confuse a lot of new players who are not sure what governments are all about yet
But it would increase the pleasure when finally Tigernos Conan becomes the untier of all, then turns his powerful army against his neighbors. Only to have a drunkard, Uncomfortable superviser, with only a pet idiot as an adviser, try and keep it all together when Conan dies old and wealthy.

3.Carthage can play the tribes against each other ?

The classic empire paying tribes to fight each other. I heard that's what the Chinese did with Mongolians so i don't know if it really applies to Carthage and Numidians.
It goes something like this, when you play as Carthage you may convince the native tribe to rise up against Massyli overlords. Pay 2000mnai to spawn a full rebel stack next to a Massyli controlled camp, but not their homeland. Perhaps only if you can get a spy in the settlement. The rebel stack may attack one of your cities if they beat the Massyli, what have you done!? Or maybe have it only available on the Masaesyli camp their traditional rivals. This would involve the Masaesyli in the game. All the while maintaining a nice peaceful trading relationship with them. I like the Massyli they are my friends.
When you play as the Massyli that 1000mnai bonus disappears quick when have more than 4 provinces and start loosing good relations with Carthage. Or maybe the 1000mnai bonus stays but suddenly neighboring tribes attack you more frequently. The Masaesyli are massing their forces. Some sort of interference with Carthage while having good relations, on top of the shadow game. When you finally destroy the council administration at Qart'hadast all the meddling stops and whats left is just an alliance of old Phoenician trading cities.

Maybe i just play this game too much . Also i don't know what the script is capable of, it seems like you guys have stretched a rabbit skin over a whale already.

At the moment, by turn 300, every city you have is a Carthage in its own right. There's no distinction in size between the metropolis and subject cities of the empire. Everything grows very quickly to the max size

I also agree with this. There are no large towns in my game in Turn400/173BC Its all cities and Large cities. When i roughly looked at it, the average settlements are ~17000 households that is the most frequent number. Low settlements are ~7000 households and high settlements are ~24000. for camps ~6000.

Re: Fans suggestion thread for future releases

I find your first idea terrible.

I mean allied goverments are already pretty bad and rarely used as they already setback a lot a settlement in terms of building posibilities and they dont give that much troops.
At least myself I only use them in places with a really big disorder I cant control otherwise or to get a bit more variety of troops if I found the army I can raise in my direct goverments is lacking in some aspects. And even with that most time is a very short term thing that gets replaced as soon as possible.

So getting ensured rebellions wont make them more appealing.

2nd point I agree is an issue, some cultures make expansion a lot easier as theres a large amount of settlements with a high level on those even far away from each other, giving as result unrealistic shaped empires. But I dont know if its possible to do that, simialr for the third one

Re: Fans suggestion thread for future releases

In an upcoming version after your old faction leader meets his end, unrest will happen depending on the settlement and perhaps random chance when the leader dies, alongside a painful loss in your treasuries as your new leader scrambles to consolidate his new holdings and establish his authourity. Rebels will also spawn in the territory with unrest potentially attacking your city before it falls to revolt unless you were careful with it. Additionally when your heir dies there may (still being discussed) be a lesser series of squabbles for succession.

Other details are still being processed by the team but rest assured the script for it is well underway, thanks to gigantus.

Re: Fans suggestion thread for future releases

Originally Posted by z3n

In an upcoming version after your old faction leader meets his end, unrest will happen depending on the settlement and perhaps random chance when the leader dies, alongside a painful loss in your treasuries as your new leader scrambles to consolidate his new holdings and establish his authourity. Rebels will also spawn in the territory with unrest potentially attacking your city before it falls to revolt unless you were careful with it. Additionally when your heir dies there may (still being discussed) be a lesser series of squabbles for succession.

Other details are still being processed by the team but rest assured the script for it is well underway, thanks to gigantus.

Why so much complication when other scripts still do not work as they are supposed to? EB1 was great because it was a giant sandbox where you could make your own path. Lately, some of EB2 seems more like a vanilla TW game where the player is forced into more rigid gameplay that follows the ideas of a very small minority.

Re: Fans suggestion thread for future releases

Originally Posted by Thuycidides

Why so much complication when other scripts still do not work as they are supposed to? EB1 was great because it was a giant sandbox where you could make your own path. Lately, some of EB2 seems more like a vanilla TW game where the player is forced into more rigid gameplay that follows the ideas of a very small minority.

EB1 was (and is) a great game, but I appreciate that the devs are trying to improve on some of its gameplay aspects. In this instance, I think the complaint was that every EB1 game always ended with the same three or three factions (Rome, Carthage, Seleucids, for example) overrunning the map very early on, and wiping out all of the other factions.

I think their efforts to create more stable AI competition, and slow the rapid expansion of AI empires, is a good thing. As far as a sandbox game goes, this sort of design actually *increases* the player's opportunities to interact with the dynamically-evolving world, rather than a static one of two or three large empires - keeping more AI factions alive longer is the equivalent of having more toys with you in the sandbox

P.S. - I don't want to be negative towards other peoples' preferences, nor do I want to speak for the devs on the issue. Just want to make it clear that there are fans on both sides of the issue.